rAVe [Publications] attended the official unveiling of the Christie MicroTiles line in Times Square last month. Although we had already seen the MicroTiles at InfoComm in a private suite, it wasn't until last month that we understood the game-changing impact Christie will have with MicroTiles. And, to be perfectly honest, we don't even think that Christie has a handle on how big of a product they have on their hand with MicroTiles.
Why are we so bullish on MicroTiles? Simple: it's a differentiator that LITERALLY gives way to very creative, unique "out of the box/rectangle" projection images and puts that in the hands of the most creative systems designers on the market.
The actual individual tiles are rear-screen, DLP projected, 16"W x 12"H (20" diagonally), 20" deep and weigh 20 pounds. That in itself is not impressive, unless you were or are in the projection CUBE business.
MicroTiles immediately renders that market, with its giant, multi-person, color-management horror problems, useless. MicroTiles are the ultimate "cube" solution, in our opinion, as they are portable, single-person installable and, because they are LED-lit, are calibrated to AUTOMATICALLY color-correct and light-uniformity by talking to each other. Yes, talking to each other.
For example, if you have to replace one, the new one AUTOMATICALLY adjusts BOTH color-temperature AND light output to conform to the worst-performing Tile. But since they are LED, the worst case is 20 percent light output loss over 60,000-hours.
The real strength, however, is in the shapes, sizes and creative installs you can do with MicroTiles. They're a bit expensive for boardroom and conference room installs, but for rental, staging and large venue applications -- watch out -- these could take over quickly.
Why? Again, they are automatic. Not only do they auto-correct for color and light uniformity, but they literally figure out the size and shape of the image you are making and re-calibrate the image to be shown without ANY signal or wall processor. Seriously. How? They have IR-sensors that allow them to see which Tile is next to, on top of and below it. Thus, it figures out where each Tile is positioned and re-purposes the image shape and size accordingly. Seriously, this works. We saw it, live, in NYC last week!
Not much else to say, other than they are about USD$3700 per Tile, and we highly recommend that you consider watching this 4:28-video we shot that demos MicroTiles perfectly for you!
The audio sucks on this video, but you CAN hear it, but more importantly, you'll see them in action in all shapes and sizes. Remember, you can change shapes and size on-the-fly, literally, as each Tile figures out where it is in relation to the projected image.
Go and watch the video for Christie MicroTiles
